Tennessee Military Institute - Radiogram Yearbook (Sweetwater, TN)

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genuine college work. Since it has been the record of Tennessee Military In- stitute over a long period of years that more than ninety per cent of its grad- uates enter college, this school has continued its insistence on sound preparation for college through the mastery of essential courses. In our judgment, this is the best way to cultivate mental discipline and the ability to undertake the solu- tion of problems that will arise during the later period of college attendance and still later in the affairs of life. As a result of conducting the school in accordance with these convictions for more than fifty years, we have brought about the result in Tennessee Military Institute that there are very few failures in college work by graduates of this school. This is particularly true with reference to college courses in Mathematics and Sciences based on Mathematics which are the departments in which there are the highest percentages of failure for high school graduates. 2. FACTORS WHICH Before any school can promise to cultivate character, cuL1'lvA1'E CHARACTER it must remove the factors that undermine character. Of first importance is the faculty. No teacher of questionable personal habits or standards can be employed or retained. On the positive side, the school must be officered and the classes must be taught by men of such high ideals and such genuine conceptions of sound character that the pupil will be influenced both consciously and unconsciously to emulate the qualities he admires in one or more of his teachers. Character cannot be forci- bly injected into a boy. The most potent factor in cultivating character is com- ing in intimate contact constantly with men of genuine convictions and un-- swerving loyalty to their ideals. It is important that these ideals be connected with genuine religious reverence and a steady faith in the eternal things. Ten- nessee Military Institute has several such personalities, and many hundreds of boys have been influenced by them. Further, for a school to succeed in cultivating character, its institutional policies must be thoroughly honest and free from all elements of trickery. Sometimes a school preaches a very impressive doctrine of righteousness and then resorts to such questionable business or interscholastic practices as to de- stroy any influence for good from its preaching. Tennessee Military Institute makes no claim of perfection in this important field. It does claim to be free from pretense, hypocrisy, and sham. It is our Page Seven

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mlaorfctnf Confiialerafiond in .gzdcfing ct Shoo! Different parents will. arrange in different orders of importance the ele- ments for which they will look in the schools they consider. Most discrimi- nating parents will seek to find a school CD known for its scholastic excel- lence, f2j known to be under the direction of men of sound character, whose influences on maturing boys will be desirable, Q32 a school large enough to afford a comprehensive program and small enough to afford individual atten- tion, MJ a school having adequate, comfortable, clean buildings and sani- tary surroundingsg C51 a school that gives promise of permanence by the success of its past and the achievements of its present, f6j a school located in a favorable environment, judged from the point of view of the individual parent, C75 a school so situated as to promise freedom from distracting in- fluences such as beset most boys in their home communities, and Q81 a school equipped with such recreational facilities as make it probable that the boy will be happy in his surroundings. Since parents differ in their tastes and judgments and since boys differ in type and temperament, quite obviously schools of varying types will appeal to different family groups. In the paragraphs which follow, we undertake to discuss the foregoing elements of importance in the selection of a school and to explain the position of Tennessee Military In- stitute on each of them. 1- SCHUI-ASTIC This is a period of great diversity of method in the teaching EXCELLENCE profession and of equal diversity of objectives sought in dif- ferent schools. A generation ago, private preparatory schools and public high schools taught a limited number of subjects in much the same manner, holding the pupil to a program of consecutive courses until some de- gree of mastery was attained in the essential branches of English, Mathematics, Latin for other foreign languagej, History, and Science. Twenty-five or thirty years ago a trend developed under which the requirements for a high school diploma could be satisfied by the substitution of many so-called vocational courses without regard to the contribution these made toward fitting a boy for Page Six

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belief that a high per cent of our boys every year admire the qualities of the Christian gentleman and that many seek to cultivate these qualities in themselves. 3. BIG ENOUGH TO AFFOIIIJ A COMPREHENSIVE PROGRAM- A Small School, SMALL ENOUGH 'ro PROVIDE INDIVIDUAL ATTENTION 11111655 heavlly e n d o W e d o r operated at a very high tuition rate, cannot afford to provide either a cur- riculum embracing the essential branches or a recreational program that will provide a desirable variety to cover the interests of all boys enrolled. There- fore, a school that prefers to make up its enrollment from good middle-class business and professional income brackets should be a medium-sized school of about 550 boys. In such a school, class sections can be organized rang- ing from ten to fifteen boys to the class, enabling each teacher daily to learn and care for the needs of each boy. It makes it possible for the admin- istrative officers as well as teachers to know every boy in school. This re- stores the values that have largely been lost in recent years as schools have grown to such large numbers. Believing that these are important factors in determining the quality of service we think a private preparatory school should undertake to render, Tennessee Military Institute has set 350 boys as the at- tendance limit it will not exceed. The number of day students from Sweet- water and adjacent towns is limited to fifty and the number of boarding students to 300. 4. ADEQUA-I-E' COMFORTABLE' Satisfactory schoolwork is by no means con- AND SANITARY BUILDINGS tingent on superfine buildings and showy sur- roundings. In selecting a school we certainly would not rate the quality of the buildings as a first consideration. On the other hand, it should be recognized that clean, comfortable living and work- ing quarters do contribute to the happiness and contentment of students and thereby increase the probability of satisfactory scholastic progress. That is what we provide at Tennessee Military Institute - buildings that are clean and com- fortable. We invite visits of inspection. 5. PERMANENCE It is a sad experience for a person to attend a school which closes its doors and passes out of existence during the lifetime of its graduates. Recent years have furnished several such instances. In select- Page Eight